


Bring Me Back from the Dead

by ThreeWhiskeyLunch



Series: His Flesh Burns [1]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Dark, Existential Angst, Existential Crisis, F/M, M/M, Memory Loss, Renegade Commander Shepard
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-23
Updated: 2015-12-23
Packaged: 2018-05-03 02:01:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 2,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5272388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThreeWhiskeyLunch/pseuds/ThreeWhiskeyLunch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Commander Alessandro Shepard wakes up in a Cerberus lab with no memory of who he is. He can speak, he can move, but he doesn’t remember people or places, where he was born, who his parents were, the fight to save the Citadel from Saren and Sovereign, nothing from his past.</p>
<p>All there is is pain, instinct, and a black void.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. His Flesh Burns

**Author's Note:**

> This started out as a germ of an idea: what if Shepard woke up in ME2 with no memories?
> 
> What I'll tell you is this: Spacer born, War Hero, Infiltrator. Also he's bisexual, which is why there are f/m and m/m tags.
> 
> I'll add tags as the story progresses. I have a vague idea of where it will go, but I'll let the muse be the guide for this.

There is only pain.  
  
The woman tells him to get up. Calls him Commander. Calls him Shepard. He knows that is him, but does not know how he knows. She tells him to shoot and he does, but does not know how he knows to shoot. It is only self-preservation.   
  
He knows exactly this: instinct and the pain of his skin, his muscles on fire and the black void in his mind that is wrong and unfillable.  
  
He moves, he shoots only because she says, "Move. Shoot." It is more than learned. It is ingrained; an essential part of him as breathing and his heart pumping.  
  
He does not remember who he is. Why he is. What or where he is.  
  
How he is he knows. How he is is terrible. Awful. Agony. How he is is wrong.  
  
He does not trust the man he meets. The man assumes he knows to lead, so he leads. He does not say, "Tell me who I am." He does not say, "I don't remember."  
  
He says, "Which way?"  
  
He does not trust the woman he meets, the woman who calls him Commander, who told him to move, to shoot. He does not say, "Tell me who I am." He does not say, "There is a black void where my memories should be."  
  
He says, "I'll go with you."  
  
There is only the pain of his burning flesh.


	2. Fool Them

Question everything. Question everyone.  
  
Find answers.  
  
This is familiar. But I do not know why.  
  
The woman asks about the Skyllian Blitz. I would tell her if I could. “We’re done here. Move on,” is all it takes and she believes. Who is she to judge?  
  
Who am I to judge?  
  
The woman is too perfect.  
  
The man is too eager.  
  
I am too off balance.  
  
They give me an omnitool. They give me a sniper rifle. They give me armor. I know them and I don't know them; they are cousins to something my hand remembers.  
  
The omnitool proves most useful. 'Commander Shepard' was...is a public figure and I'm quick to fill the emptiness of the void with information. Saren. Geth. Alliance. Spectre. Reapers. For now, pick the highlights and pretend. Fool them. If you're him, if you're not him. Fool them.  
  
I look like him. In the mirror I see the similarities. Scar across the face gone. Bright weave of synth-flesh in its place. But same red hair. Same green eyes. Same cheekbones. How much of this man in the mirror is real? How much has been replaced? Is it him? Am I him?  
  
I do not know. I wonder if I ever will know.  
  
I do not trust this new man. Illusive. Or illusion? He smokes and lies to my face. I don't know the lies, but they lurk in the shadows, licking at my feet. He stinks of deception and half-truths cloaked in obscene riddles.  
  
I'll play his game. Swim in the void of my nothing. Fool them for now. Fool them until I've fooled myself. Maybe someday I'll believe it too.


	3. This One

She knows me. She knows my voice. She knows my face. Because she knows me? Or because she has seen my face before?  
  
How can I know her when I can’t see behind her mask?  
  
"Don't point that gun at me."  
  
And by that she knows me. Calls me Shepard. There is a ringing in the void, something that wants to echo. But Miranda and Jacob lurk at my back, watching. Judging. I don't trust them and they don't trust me.  
  
They shouldn't. I wouldn't if I were them. Would I if I were me?  
  
This voice though. Lilting and singsong. I want to know this voice. She is fierce, protective. And I don't _not_ trust her. There are so many to not trust. She feels different. The air around her is like walking into a different room; the light casting shadows at a different angle, warmer, hazy with rays of sun through the blinds.  
  
But I have failed her in some way. I feel it in the shape of her back when she turns away. There is something left unsaid. Something I should have known to say, to ask.  
  
"How are you?" I didn't say. I need to remember to ask such things.  
  
I am a disappointment even to myself.


	4. Home

I do not understand the perfection of Miranda, the earnestness of Jacob. But I am drawn to this limping, imperfect man whose words bite with humor through his personal anguish. I understand his love for the ship laid out before us. I hear pride in his voice and for the first time since I woke up, I feel I want to be a part of something.  
  
Aboard and it feels right. Like home. Only not. My feet take me places, expecting to find one thing only to be surprised with another. Heading to Omega and I wander, tracing the ship with finger tips lightly caressing the bulkhead, feeling the small vibration of the engine, stumbling through rooms to find people I do not want to speak to-  
  
“Commander.”  
  
My feet want...a curve, a dark passage, a downward spiral. But there is Jacob. Saluting and tightly wound.  
  
“Carry on.”  
  
Another salute.  
  
-and-  
  
“Can I help you, Shepard?”  
  
“No, sorry, Miranda. Just getting familiar with the ship.”  
  
“Alright, Commander.”  
  
The engine room is a homing beacon I want to curl up in, wrap myself around the pulsing engine and let it soothe the pain. The hum is a lifeline, the vibration a tuning fork that sings in my core. For one moment I am almost so very much alive and I remember intangible joy only to have it slip through my fingers just as quickly. Gone. Gone. Soaked up into the void and the tears in my eyes burn, salt rubbed into wounds only moments fresh.


	5. There is No Sanctuary in Rest

“How do you feel, Commander?”  
  
I’m covered in hot lava. My muscles ache beyond soreness; they scream beyond being torn apart. I control my fingers only through pure will power, I walk by telling each foot to move. My skin could be ripped from me and it would bring relief, my head could be sliced free and the blessed silence from pain would be my solace. My bones could be pulverized and I would kiss the fiend who destroyed them.  
  
I choke on food; I gasp from drowning in a glass of water. I piss acid and shit hot coals. Particles in the air pierce my lungs, burn my airway coming in, going out. I blink and my eyes scream in agony. The sheets on my bed are sandpaper on my flesh; the pillow a rock under my head. The clothes I wear are surely the devilish design of a hard-hearted priest. Every noise is an echo of the last, building in my skull until there is only the reverb of every sound I have ever heard.  
  
I want to sleep and not wake. I am tired, so tired. There is no joy in this life. Only pain. Only the black void.  
  
There is something wrong with me. This isn’t right. This can’t be right.  
  
Fix me.  
  
Please. Fix me.  
  
I nearly say this, the words on the air in my lungs. I want to trust her as she says she trusts me. But the black void lurks, always there and looming. I cannot think around the pain to examine the void more closely.  
  
“I feel fine. Thank you, doctor.”  
  
I am a coward, hiding behind the pain.


	6. Omega is the Beginning

Omega is collecting trinkets. If trinkets were crew. My hand swoops out and three are in the fold. So easy. So hard. So messy.  
  
Archangel knows me and I wonder if my past self had been to every corner of the galaxy, met nearly every one. Everyone seems to know me.  
  
But Archangel is different. Easy. Friend or shadow maybe. He is easy until he is hard and nearly dead. Then he is a weight that I fear I am not strong enough to bear. I feel the potential loss keenly, a sharp dagger in my heart.  
  
“Something is different,” he says. When he is safe. When he is healed and scarred. We are alone in his sanctuary. He sniffs the air. “You are you. I would know if you weren't.”  
  
I hesitate. _Trust this one._ It is less than thought, more than my lungs breathing. How to tell someone? _I know you, but I don't know you. I remember only in my blood, not in my head._  
  
His eyes watch, wait. “Yes. Something is different.”  
  
“I died.” _So they tell me._  
  
He brushes that aside with a wave of his hand. Dying is inconsequential. “No.” He peers closer. “Something is missing.”


	7. Lament

He hears their howling cries on the wind. Twenty bodies preserved in the snow. Twenty ghosts- _should be twenty one_ -to wander among, drifting around him as the aurora shimmers on the solar winds. And where is his body in this graveyard? Why only him and not the others? There is nothing special about him. Nothing deserving of this perverse revival. There is no reason for him to live when others do not.  
  
The stars over Alchera are as thick as cream; dizzying, falling, crumbling down over the broken remains of a brittle, frozen ship. He circles in place, snow crunching under his feet, and gazes up at the stars, vision full of them through his visor. Somewhere up there he died. Somewhere up there his last breath was caught on the ether and was pulled away. And somewhere down here his body landed. Broken and lifeless. Just another empty shell with the other twenty, surrounded by the shattered hull. A dream realized. And in the end, a nightmare.  
  
A chasm. Further down than he can see and the stars fall in it, ever down. No end and no beginning. Behind him the splinters that reach for the stars, a child’s toy wrecked and tossed aside. Is this what life is? Perfection turned to horror? Creating and destroying? Useful and then utterly, hopelessly useless?  
  
He is unnatural. He should be here, but not like this. Not alive. He should remain here forever. Forgotten with the others.  
  
 _Why me and not them?_   
  
Why are there no answers here? Why are there no memories? Why can he walk between the pieces of this ship and find no relief? Nothing here is familiar.  
  
There is still just only himself. And the twenty dogtags in his hand. The sound of their chimes as he moves. The music of dead soldiers. Their names a whisper on his lips as he finds each one. _Do you remember me? Am I the man you knew? Tell me I am. Tell me._ They whisper to him, wordless voices of wind and yearning. Life cut short.  
  
 _Were you frightened? Did you think of loved ones-mother, husband, child? Or was it only duty that was your last thought? Did you ponder your regrets? Were you thankful for what little you were given? Tell me. Tell me so I can know my own. Tell me so my mind can ease._  
  
He finds no proof he was ever here. Only jumbled words on a datapad that dies as quickly as it flickers to life. For one brief moment, he sees a man, bald and old and scowling and a half second later he could not have said what that man had looked like. The image slips through his memories, elusive and shrouded. He grasps at it, desperate and anxious, but it is gone as if it had never been there.  
  
He falls to his knees, fist tight around the dogtags. The snow welcomes him. Cold comfort to his fevered flesh.  
  
He screams his frustration to the stars above. To the bodies of fallen crew. To the hull of a broken ship.  
  
To the body he will not find.  
  
Above him, a shooting star splits the night sky.


	8. Twisted

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Much thanks to potionsmaster for the helpies with this chapter. You're the bestest.

The conversation with David Anderson goes something like this: specific question (him), vague answer (me); repeat until nerves are flayed raw. Research only goes so far. This man knows me and says he trusts me and I feel it in my gut to say things I have told no one: an abandoned child attesting to sins too sensitive and too deeply embedded to be considered anything but part of its nature. And Anderson the sympathetic confessor. It’s in his eyes, I realize, this need to speak the words.  
  
Archangel and the old mercenary watch from a distance; Massani leaning in posed nonchalance against the wall, Archangel feigning interest in the news reports, but his eyes keep me pinned in a sideways gaze he does nothing to hide.  
  
(Archangel suspects.)  
  
(Archangel knows.)  
  
(We don't talk about this.)  
  
The dogtags I brought from Alchera sit heavily in my pocket, fingers brushing over the flat tags, the beaded chains. I dig my hand into them, crush them as sweat breaks down my back. I should have stayed away. This man is too close. He is as familiar as the grip of my rifle.  
  
He asks, “What are you doing out there?” and I want to laugh and say, “I have no fucking clue. Maybe you could tell me.”  
  
But instead I say ‘Collectors’ and ‘Reapers’ because this is what I’ve been told by Miranda and by a man who lies as easily as he exhales cigarette smoke. The doubt weighs even more heavily when Anderson suggests in an off-hand manner not to trust Cerberus. A confirmation I don’t know what to do about.  
  
Do I owe Cerberus for my life? I revile them for slamming me back into a world that does not need me. For giving me a pain that goes beyond torture into masochistic glee. For taking my memories and sweeping them aside like cold ashes. I did not ask for any of that.  
  
I pull the dogtags from my pocket, the jumble of chains and tags a malformed glove, the sound of them ringing through the small office. “Can you get these to-” _Hackett_ “-Hackett?” My hand barely shakes with the thought of letting them go. They have been on my person since I picked them up, a talisman to stand in place of memories. But they are not mine to keep, any more than this body is mine.  
  
The man in front of me deflates somewhat, seeing the mess in my hand. “Oh, Shepard. You-”  
  
He knew these people. Served with them. ( _As did you._ A forced reminder). Maybe it was wrong to bring them to him, but his hand is out, taking them with gentle fingers and draping them over a thumb so they drip down, a chiming waterfall in his hand. His touch is reverent, lingering over the names. “How was it?” he asks. He does not look at me.  
  
I think of the night sky that I could not stop watching, the dazzling stars overhead, the creak and groan of frozen metal in the still air. The hard snow underfoot. The deep chasm that I could have lost myself in. I think too of the thin thread of trust that entwines this man and I. A trust I want to- No. Need to believe in.  
  
“Cold,” I say. There are other words I could say. _Horrible. Haunted. There was nothing there. No answers. I could not find where my body landed. I could not find memories_. But I do not say these words. “It was cold.”  
  
He does look at me then, a sharp glance, a tinge of anger in his eyes. He stares at me for long moments, “The Shepard I know would have never been so hard hearted. What’s really going on, son?”  
  
I find everything in the room fascinating except for the man standing before me, shoulder emblazoned with golden stripes, proud and protective. “Nothing-”  
  
“Bullshit.” His voice is harsh, but then I hear him let out a sigh. When I look at him, his eyes are sad and tired. “Look. If you want to talk, you know where I am.”  
  
I shy away from his trust, as skittish and full of dread as the sinful child who flees from his confessor. 


	9. Celebrate the Victories

Vido Santiago burns.  
  
Zaeed portions out the whiskey. A bottle that has been waiting twenty years for this day. He is liberal in his disbursement of the libations.  
  
Vido Santiago burns and I envy him his death.  
  
Zaeed’s whiskey burns as it travels down my throat, an echo my singed flesh.  
  
The workers burn all of a one and I envy them their deaths.  
  
“There’s more to life than living,” Zaeed says.  
  
“This isn’t living?” I ask.  
  
“You and I are already dead, Shepard. Men like us, we don’t have the luxury of living. All we can do is try to outsmart death as long as possible. Men like Vido-they never see that. He got up this morning, took a piss, ate his goddamn breakfast. You think he woke up this morning thinking it would be his last? There is never a goddamn morning I don’t wake up and fully expect I won’t be alive at some point that day. Never a night I’m not completely surprised that I’m still breathing. Death does that to you. You know this. There are no fucking guarantees for any of it. So you better do more than just live. You better be goddamn fucking brilliant.”  
  
“How am I doing so far?”  
  
“There’s a hole-” he pounds my chest once, just at my heart “-right here.” His hand is heavy, weighted with alcohol.  
  
Vido Santiago burns. The workers burn. My throat burns. My flesh burns brighter every day.  
  
A mercenary finds an emptiness I didn’t know I had until it was named.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
